princessa sequoia is born!

Hello Uncles & Aunties,

Happy New Year and Chinese New Year! I am finally here .....

My full name is Sequoia Gabriela Tze-Hwei Khng Gois. I know it sounds long and all, but i think I can live with it :-) It is afterall officially already!!!

I was born a wee lil thang! My vital statistics at birth were:

Date of Birth: December 31, 2007
Time: 12.12 am
Length: 49 cm
Weight: 3.1kg
Head circumference: 39 cm
Place: Labor Ward Operating Theater, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Building, University College Hospital London


Mom says a lot of you have asked what my name means...now that i am alive and kicking, i can finally explain it to all of you :-) Please indulge me....

According to mom....

1. Sequoia (pronounced ser-kor-yer) means rarity, endurance, longevity and strength. It is taken from the rare group of giant California redwoods, affectionately known as the Sequoia National Forest. My mom simply can't shake off her love of geography and trees :-)

2. Gabriela, taken from Angel Gabriel, will be my baptism name. It means God's strength, which i hope with stay by my side all my life! This is thanks to Aunty Marge who recommended the website for Saints Names!

3. Tze-Hwei, means wisdom, which i hope i will have when i grow up :-) My Aunty Eunice's mother in law helped me to pick it. She says it is in harmony with my mom's Chinese name and my birth date and time. So, that means i will get along with my mom all my life...yeah!!! I so love her already and love sleeping in her arms...i can't bear to sleep in my own cot bear...i hear her saying she is pleased as she wants to watch me all the time and hear me breathe...she thinks I can't understand but i do!!! But i also know that my increasing weight is hurting her back...so i guess i will have to sleep in my own cot bed soon as she won't be able to take me sleep on a pillow on her lap much longer :-)

4. Khng means health, and

5. Gois is my father's last name! Not sure about the meaning. He isn't sure as well! Figures....

My Mom has compiled a no. of funny photos for your laughing pleasure. Most of them were taken after i was 1 month old. I hear you have already received some of the earlier shots of me...i hope you liked them...i will be taking a look at them when i am older and maybe chiding mommy for sending them out if they did indeed embarrassed me!!! She is assuring me as I type that they are all discrete and that the embarrassing ones are kept solely for my own personal peels of laughter !!!

I don't have too many outdoor shots yet as Grandma and Mom are afraid of me picking up germs from public places. But because Grandma caught a superbug stomach virus, i, too, have already had my share of diarrhoea, cough and cold. My mommy thought she ate too much green veggies ... ha ha ha...she only realized I had diarrhoea when she consulted the baby books! Silly mommy! Mom also keeps trying to dig the booger our from my tiny nose. She is terrible. The cotton bud doesn't get it out and she has tried more than once to stick her pinky into my little nostril! Stop it, Mom!

In some of the photos, i think I look like i am a junior flight stewardess flying with Emirates since i look like I am wearing headgear...

In the rest, grandma and Mom have attempted to capture me laughing or smiling, or sleeping in a weird position with hands in all sorts of contorted positions.


I hear mom and Grandma saying that i could be a contortionist when i grow up although they hope I will have a normal and stable job like everyone else! Thank God she didn't send out the ones of me having a bath or of grandma making me poo over the toilet sink! Thank God Mom has selectively chosen which shots I am to be embarrassed with!

Mommy says I am growing up too fast already... she says that the length of my foot is already 1.5cm longer on her birthday on Feb 21 than it was on my 1 month old birthday on Jan 31, 2007! Tell you a secret, she doesn't know that i know that she is always trying to draw the outline of my feet and hands when i am sleeping :-) Oh mommy dearest...sigh...yes, i can actually sigh even though i am so young and, according to mommy, technically have nothing in life to sigh about... :-)

Mom says that I make funny sounds when i am about to poo... she says i start to do the Sat Night Fever dance and put a raised left hand on my left ear and yell out "aaaeeerhhhhh" and then do the same with the raised right hand to the right ear... she says that i do this for about 10 minutes, and then the loud farts come...."poooooooooooooottttt." Literally that long and drawn out! I swear I don't think it is that loud or for that long a duration but she says it has the loudness of the decibel of a normal person talking and that i fart like a grown up MAN!!! Eeeeiiiiiwwwwww...gross...Does it smell bad, Mom? Anyway, thank God she didn't send out any videos of me doing the big thing or me farting. Mom and Grandma say i may be 7 weeks old but i am already so "chor lor!" Oh dear.....

She says I then do the big thing like there's no tomorrow. She says that i strain and push it all out with such fervor, it's like I am trying to cleanse and detox myself! She also says that the sound it makes always sounds like I have permanent, never-ending diarrhoea :-)

Thanks to Grandma making me poo over the sink, i have almost no nappy rash since the excrements have no chance of mingling with my pee :-) So why are they still putting barrier cream on my butt!!! ???

All this talk of pooing making me want to poo again!!! No, i's just kidding. If I was all fidgety and all, Mom wouldn't be able to be my secretary and type this email out! I am actually sleeping peacefully on a pillow, carefully and strategically placed on her lap. Mom says if i move too much, i am pressing on her c-section scar and it hurts her.She tells me to stay still all the time!!! I am a baby for God's sake...i can't stay still !!! Can someone please tell my Mommy that???!!! :-)

She keeps putting my on my side now...she says Grandma says it will prevent me from getting a flat head! Didn't she read the baby books? They say that our heads will bounce back into full roundness as we age! Geeeeeeeesss....

Grandma says that sleeping on my side makes me get these "laugh lines." I am too young to have laugh lines but we can't be too choosy, can we? Which is worse? Flat head or laugh lines on your face? Beats me :-)

In the meanwhile, i miss Grandma like crazy! She left Feb 19! Grandma says I must like Chinese since i always stop fidgeting when she sings her Chinese songs or speaks to me in Chinese. Grandma says "jao an," every morning and "wan an" every night. She says i like to hear these words cos i start smiling widely from ear to ear! She also says that i love hearing the words, "kuai kuai," meaning good, good in Chinese because i break out in a beautiful grin!!! She says I have been smiling since i was a few days old...and have continued to since then. Are you sure, grandma??? You're just saying that because I am your grand daughter and you love me! Oh, by the way, mom said i did do a true long lasting smile and gurgle a few weeks ago...and that they weren't dreaming my smiles up....i think i believe her!

I miss grandma's singing to me and rocking me to sleep without the milky smell that Mommy has. She has a better voice than Mom's and her music repertoire is better! She sings me all the old Nat King Cole, heartbreakingly beautiful Chinese songs and other romantic songs...Mom is always singing Christmas songs (Xmas is over, Mom!), Catholic church retreat type of songs or Elvis songs!!! I feel like i have already watched and heard the G.I Blues and Blue Hawaii sound track!!! Gimme a break, Mom!!! Talking about Elvis, Mom says I have the Elvis grin...as in grinning on one side of the face! Really???? This i gotta see for myself! Do i have his voice, too?

When i am with Mommy, i always feel like eating...even when i am full! She just smells of milk all the time and i don't want to waste a drop of it...it'll filled with antibodies, right??? :-) OK, OK, so i'm just being greedy! I already have milk thrush on my tongue as i am drinking it almost nonstop! But it's not all my fault...it's also mom's fault as she doesn't want me to use a pacifier so she has to contend with her being one! She told me yesterday that i should not be using her as a pacifier for 4 hours in a row just because i miss grandma!!! Talking about grandma...."wwwwhhhhhaaaeeeerrrrrrhhhh........" where is grandma???

OK, i will say hi again next month. Hope everyone is happy and healthy. I can't wait to meet all of you one day soon...thanks again for all your prayers, gifts and good wishes...

Love & Kisses,
Sequoia Gabriela Tze-Hwei
xxxx oooooo xxxx ooooo